


watch me unravel

by Anonymous



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, F/M, Gen, It's very difficult to tag, Necrophilia, a lot of me waxing poetic, edrisa being an awesome wingman while malcolm inadvertently falls in love with her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:35:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23481055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: There is beauty in death. There is familiarity in cold, pale skin; in bloated tongues and stiff limbs. Malcolm has been surrounded by death his entire life. Numb to its sapping dread, he finds comfort in the moments where its presence can't be denied.akaMalcolm makes out with a dead body!
Relationships: Malcolm Bright & Edrisa Tanaka, Malcolm Bright/Edrisa Tanaka
Comments: 9
Kudos: 25
Collections: Anonymous





	watch me unravel

**Author's Note:**

> HEAVY NECROPHILIA Y'ALL! 
> 
> i'm sorry he's just so, so perfect for it :/  
> want to check out my other fic for this fandom? https://archiveofourown.org/works/23365378
> 
> consider commissioning me to write you a fic! lmk if you'd be interested. (i am broke as hell and haven't had any commissions yet). 
> 
> thanks so much for reading. i thrive on comments <3

There is beauty in death. There is familiarity in cold, pale skin; in bloated tongues and stiff limbs. Malcolm has been surrounded by death his entire life. Numb to its sapping dread, he finds comfort in the moments where its presence can't be denied.

Like now.

JT looks grimly but stoically over their victim. Dani isn't too squeamish, but still, her gaze doesn't linger. And the way Gil attempts to make conversation whilst pretending there isn't a corpse between them is almost comical.

Malcolm drinks his fill. Anyone who wasn't a coward could tell you she was beautiful. Chestnut hair frames her face, with striking features, like a strong brow and full lips.

"Cause of death?" Gil asks.

"Many, many stab wounds. Forty-two to be precise! With a _bread knife_. That must have hurt," Edrisa says, wincing in sympathy.

Malcolm doesn't really trust himself to lift the sheet covering the body without touching. Luckily, Edrisa does it for him.

He inhales sharply. Their eyes snap up to watch him, and he quickly looks up, fixing on a smile. "That's a lot of stab wounds. Our killer was very, very angry."

"I could have told you that," Dani mutters under her breath, rolling her eyes. Malcolm flashes her a grin. He gains inexplicable, immeasurable joy from being treated like a person instead of a porcelain ornament.

"Do we have an ID?" he asks Edrisa.

"Not quite yet. But I've no doubt someone will recognize her, she's very... striking."

 _Beautiful,_ Malcolm infers. He has great respect for anyone who will acknowledge it. 

"All right," Gil sighs. "Let's talk to her colleagues at the hospital. JT and Dani, find me a list of staff who were on shift with her that night. Bright, with me. We need to interview her patients."

Pleased to be put to work, Malcolm makes to follow Gil and the others out of the mortuary.

"Wait!"

They turn.

"Um, could I just have a moment to talk to Bright?" Edrisa asks, twisting her hands nervously. 

"Oh, hell no, not in front of a dead body," groans JT, screwing his face up in disgust.

"Uh-"

"I'll be waiting in my office, Malcolm," Gil says accommodatingly. Edrisa beams at him.

Malcolm leans against the wall and tilts his head, encouraging her to speak. She looks uncomfortable. About to broach a difficult subject, then. He's vaguely aware that she likes him, although in which context, he hasn't been able to identify. The others seem convinced she wants to jump his bones, but it doesn't feel so superficial to him.

"There's no easy way to tell you this," Edrisa says, sounding grim.

"People say that to me a lot," Malcolm jokes. He was trying to put her at ease but it only makes her more agitated.

"I'm sure they do," she sighs, taking a moment to pause before adding, "You haven't had a very happy life. You didn't have a very happy childhood."

Malcolm blinks. "Edrisa, I'm the profiler here."

She carries on. "You read people well. I mean- exceptionally well. Almost on a psychic level. I know it's simple psychology, but still, it's very impressive. From my perspective at least- I've always had difficulty picking up on... cues."

Malcolm settles back to listen to her. It's frustrating that he can't pick up where this is going, but he's insatiably curious. He tries not to let his gaze wander back to the other occupant of the room, laid out dead and cold on the table. He can see all her stab wounds; livid red scores in the pallid flesh where entered the serrated knife.

"I've never been able to read people," Edrisa continues softly, "but there's one thing I think I'm pretty good at identifying."

Malcolm finds himself having to shift his focus back up to her pained expression, from where he'd lapsed to staring at the corpse. He can't help it. He never stops wanting to get closer but there's always someone _there._ Probably for the best, because he worries what he'd do with free reign. Nothing too depraved, only pitiful, though perhaps crossing a line from which his psyche couldn't return.

"I think you might be a necrophiliac," Edrisa says.

There is a lengthy, pregnant pause.

"No," he replies automatically, taken completely by surprise. He shakes his head to clear it, and laughs awkwardly. "Uh... no. I'm really not."

Edrisa nods, unfazed. "Of course, I thought you would say that. It's a paraphilia most would consider the height of depravity. You wouldn't just admit to it, especially not if you think I'm accusing you."

She takes a deep breath, pausing while she gauges his reaction.

"Are you?" he demands. He clasps his hands tightly behind his back to hide his tremor. "Accusing me?"

She shakes her head and takes a step closer to him, still with this body between them. "No, I'm just... asking you. I know a lot of necrophiliacs, Bright. They made up most of my pathology classes!"

His mouth twitches in an almost-smile.

"And... I'm not judging. I understand, just as you do, that there are circumstances which foster necrophilia. You... you've been exposed to a lot of death. Maybe even more than you know. And I'm sorry, Bright, but I can tell. I can tell you think this woman is beautiful. I can tell you wanted to reach out to touch her, but you stopped yourself."

Malcolm's too busy marveling at her observational prowess, and also mentally screaming abuse at himself for not being more careful, to realize that his silence is incriminating.

Maybe this is the end of his career. Maybe Edrisa has no choice but to report him. He'll go quietly so long as he doesn't have to see the disgust in Gil's eyes, or the disappointment in Dani's, who wanted so badly to believe he wasn't anything like his father, while JT leans over to say "told you so".

"What do you want from me?" he asks her resignedly. "I have money. I'll retire if you want. Just- please don't tell Gil."

Edrisa looks distressed. "Oh, no, no, Bright, no-"

"Then _what?"_ he pleads, praying she won't use this to hurt him, praying she'll take pity on a freak who can only fantasize on true intimacy with inanimate corpses.

"I just want to help you," Edrisa tells him, raising her hands placatingly. She steps around the table to bring herself closer, and he wills himself not to shy back.

It's terrifying that she uncovered his darkest secret (or at least, the darkest he's aware of) with little more than a good eye and prior experience. How long had she waited until she cornered him? 

"No one can know about this. I can't trust anyone, not even my therapist," he rambles. "It's not- it doesn't have to be a thing. I get by. I've never even..." he trails off.

Edrisa hesitantly reaches forward to put a hand on his arm. "What if it _could_ be a thing?" she asks.

Malcolm swallows, feeling his heart drumming wild patterns in his ribcage. He's tried to bury this for so long that the prospect of indulgence is almost frightening. 

"You could hold her hand, if you wanted," she suggests softly.

He looks away, clenching his jaw. 

"Why are you being so good to me?" he questions her, completely bewildered as to why anyone would want to enable this. 

"Because I care about you," Edrisa answers. "Too much," she adds in a small voice.

He doesn't know how to respond, intense gratitude constricting his throat. With trepidation, he approaches the woman on the table. After a moment, paralyzed with doubt, he brings himself to intertwine his shaking fingers with hers. The skin is cold, bordering on clammy. Reverently, he traces the torn flesh on her arm.

"I wish I knew her name," Malcolm whispers.

He wants to know this woman. What she looked like when she smiled, what she looked like when she cried. What she dreamed about. Who she cared about. He wants to curl up around her on the table until he's just as cold, ride out the haze of overwhelming arousal and feel the years of his mental age fall away. He wants to go back to a time before chloroform seared at his lungs, and when he listened for a heartbeat, he wasn't disappointed when he found it.

"You will," Edrisa vows. A personal mission she'll undertake to ensure his peace of mind. What does she see in him? Or is she simply so skilled at handling things broken beyond repair?

He can feel himself drifting away like a wayward balloon in the wind. It wouldn't be fair for Edrisa to end up in the morgue with a ten-year-old trauma victim clinging to a corpse. He forces himself back into the moment.

"Do you like watching me?" he asks; not judgmental, merely inquisitive.

"Maybe just a little more than professional curiosity," she admits. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable. I can leave, but you have to tell me what you're planning to do. I draw the line at penetration, because we have to be respectful."

Malcolm closes his eyes. He imagines the fear he'd see on his mother's face if she realized that behind his facade of healthy, varied sex life, his father's influence had wormed its way into every facet of his being. He imagined his sister's pity, mixed with relief that at least she'd turned out all right. And worst of all, which plagued his nightmares, his father's joy. _See, Malcolm? We're not so different after all. Just like I always told you._

"You don't have to be embarrassed. Whatever you say won't leave this room," Edrisa reassures him astutely. 

He began to exist in a fog of arousal since Edrisa said, "what if it _could_ be a thing?", and he can't order his thoughts properly with the intensity of his desire. But it's complicated. He doesn't want to do any more damage, and he is afraid that crossing this boundary will mean that nothing else can ever be enough. 

"I just want to kiss her," he whispers.

Edrisa's expression softens into sympathy, and undeniable endearment. "Oh..." she whispers, tearfully pitying. "Of course." She takes on a soothing tone that's like a salve for his guilt-ridden soul. It makes him suddenly consider the possibility that she's done this for someone before, and makes a mental note to ask her, if he'll ever be able to look her in the eyes again after this. "Take your time, try and relax."

Malcolm exhales shakily. He trails his fingers through thick, brittle hair, savoring the texture and the romanticism of the gesture. He holds his breath as he leans down and tentatively presses his lips to those of the dead woman. 

They don't yield so easily as a cooperative, living partner. Involuntarily, his grip on her hair gets a little tighter, and he can't stop himself from licking at her bottom lip. An electric thrill races down his spine, leaving him breathless. His cock is hard in his slacks, and he can't ever recall feeling so desperate. He presses the heel of his hand against his groin to relieve some of the pressure, dizzy on the feel of her cold, lax tongue against his. 

He knows it's light years beyond deplorable. He spent his adolescence thinking up creative ways of self-punishment for the directions his fantasies always seemed to take. He's buried it all under more pressing psychological issues, affirming therapy and exploring the more tolerable forms of sexual deviance, but in this moment, it's impossible to deny what he really wants.

He pulls away before he loses control, trying to steady his breathing and get a hold of his stray thoughts. Edrisa is watching him with nothing more than a brow furrowed slightly in concern. For his well-being. She could only be more perfect if she were dead.

"I don't want to go further. I don't think I could stop," he says raggedly. He runs his free hand through his hair. "But sometimes, I think being able to touch..."

"Takes the edge off?" she ventures.

"Exactly," he whispers.

She hugs him as tight as she can, crushing her glasses against his shoulder. It's as if trying to keep him tethered to the land of the living. He circles his arms around her, all the meager thanks he can manage in his fugue state of melancholy. Being so close to the dead, he sometimes forgets that he's not one of them.


End file.
